Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Aggressive Atheism
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009Moron of the Year – 2009
Monday, November 16th, 2009The end of 2009 is coming soon and we finally have the most likely contender for Moron of the Year: Principal Thomas Murray, of Danvers High School in the Boston area.
The principal in question has proven himself a true imbecile of outstanding proportions, by issuing a warning to all students in the Danvers High School and their parents, that the word, “meep”, simply will not be tolerated!
His mass spamming to every student’s home e-mail address, reads as follows:
“Please be advised that any student who has the letters ‘meep’ on their clothing or uses the words verbally will face suspension from school…the police are monitoring this situation as well.”
Apparently the sound, which has no distinct meaning in the English language, incites principal Murray to shudders over “respect and appropriate conduct in school”. No mention is made as to whether the police will be using live rounds to quell the student body from uttering the forbidden noise.
But the race to fame as Moron of the Year may find the toughest competition from the same township. If you read this article by Christina Hager, on the WBZ Boston website, it seems that a local contender and mother of one of the high school students, Stephanie Morrissey, has forbidden her daughter to use the noise and is quoted as saying, “Whatever it means, must be pretty bad. [...] If that word is off limits, then it is not to come out of her mouth.”
Ms. Morrissey may receive extra stupidity points by the judging panel, for blindly following authoritarian demands without question, which in turn could hurt Murray’s chances for this year’s award.
Dispute on Global Carbon Tax Heating Up
Saturday, December 13th, 2008A short article in the International Herald Tribune covers the anger building in developing nations over the UN proposals being bandied about to replace the current Kyoto treaty in 2012. Most of it is old news, but there was one sentence that really grabbed my eye and certain shows the real motivation behind the Church of Global Warming.
Developing countries proposed a 2 percent tax on all transactions of the carbon market, which could become one of the world’s richest commodity markets if the United States creates a national cap-and-trade system as promised by President-elect Barack Obama.
Random Crap
Monday, December 8th, 2008Christmas time is upon us again and if I hear one more Christmas jingle on the radio, I think I’m going to die vomiting.
I have to ask, are all Christmas songs so damn blasted saccharine? I’m normally slightly hypoglycemic, but I feel damn near diabetic after another rousing rendition of “Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer”. I can’t seem to change the dial quickly enough to keep from sugar spiking. Time to get an iPod for the Goldwing, I think.
Speaking of the Goldwing, looks like I’m going to be grounded for a while, as snowy weather is finally making it through the Salt Lake valley. The cold never stops me, I used to love snowmobiling when I was a kid, but snow and 850 lbs. motorcycles don’t mix well. So it’s “cage” time again. At least the 4Runner has a CD player.
The house renovations are moving along slowly, but surely. I had to buy a 9 AMP DeWALT drill to mix up the self-leveling compound for the bathroom floor of the master bedroom and I have to say that I really like this beast. It’s a DW130V, with a maximum RPM of only 550, but has enough torque to flip a car over. The drill weighs 7.5 lbs. on its own, but the mixing attachment probably added a pound or two. As far as the job itself, basically you add 50 lbs. of a powder mix to 5 1/2 quarts of water and you get a thin cement, which self levels when you pour it out. It was one dusty, dirty job, but it’s done. Almost 200 square feet of flooring covered and leveled – ready for cement board and finally tile – after I build the shower, of course.
Probably the worst part about the process of leveling the floor, was putting down the metal lath. If you’ve never worked with lath before, imagine a miniature chain-link fence, in sheets of 3×8. It’s only about 1/16 of an inch thick and is meant to be stapled to the plywood underfloor in order to provide a grip for the leveling compound. It’s easy enough to move around and place, but cutting it is a chore. In order to get any kind of precision, you have to cut one link at a time and the cut edges are jagged little bastards, ready to draw blood at the slightest hint of flesh. Leather gloves are a must for this job.
We got nailed with a notice on our door a couple of weeks ago, that said the three small trees along the roadway were in violation of city ordinance to keep a 12 foot high clearance over the road and sidewalk. They’ve been untouched and unnoticed for the last seven years we’ve lived here and for much of the 30 previous that the house has stood, so I can only think that the city is scrounging for money anyplace they can find it. At least they gave us seven days to fix it before being fined.
After examining the situation, if we just cut the branches away to clear the road and walk, we’d have a thin cross section of each tree left, about three feet wide. The trees only stood 14-16 feet tall, so you’re talking one weird looking end result. Our only choice was to cut them down. Now there’s no shade at all in the front yard.
If there is a god, or karma, or something of the like – the legislator who made this stupid ordinance will die of exposure in the desert for lack of shade.
Kentucky Godland Security
Thursday, December 4th, 2008Back in November of this year, the Lexington Herald-Leader, found at Kentucky.com, printed a short article about Kentucky’s 2006 law establishing the state Office of Homeland Security (OHS). It talked about some controversial language, put in via a floor amendment of the law by state Rep. Tom Riner, D-Louisville, a Southern Baptist minister – which declares the initial duty of the OHS as: “stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth.”
Specifically, Homeland Security is ordered to publicize God’s benevolent protection in its reports, and it must post a plaque at the entrance to the state Emergency Operations Center with an 88-word statement that begins, “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.”
Well, as things often go when religious wackos push their delusional fairy tales on others, some get upset. In this case, it’s those pesky atheists again.
The plaintiffs ask for the homeland security law to be stripped of its references to God. They also ask for monetary damages, claiming to have suffered sleeping disorders and “mental pain and anguish.”
“Plaintiffs also suffer anxiety from the belief that the existence of these unconstitutional laws suggest that their very safety as residents of Kentucky may be in the hands of fanatics, traitors or fools,” according to the suit.
I don’t know about the “mental pain and anguish” part, myself. You have to be pretty weak if you loose sleep because of the workings of a few religious morons – they’re everywhere in this country. I certainly agree with the first part, however, that the language must be stripped from the law, as it violates both the Kentucky and US Constitutions.
At least the Kansas Board of Education doesn’t have to feel so alone anymore in their fight to push unproven crap on the country.
Fake TV
Monday, November 17th, 2008I realize that the title of this article is an absolute truth no matter what, but the Center for Media and Democracy shows that the shallow fatuity of the deception is simply startling.
Over a ten-month period, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) documented television newsrooms’ use of 36 video news releases (VNRs)—a small sample of the thousands produced each year. CMD identified 77 television stations, from those in the largest to the smallest markets, that aired these VNRs or related satellite media tours (SMTs) in 98 separate instances, without disclosure to viewers. Collectively, these 77 stations reach more than half of the U.S. population. The VNRs and SMTs whose broadcast CMD documented were produced by three broadcast PR firms for 49 different clients, including General Motors, Intel, Pfizer and Capital One. In each case, these 77 television stations actively disguised the sponsored content to make it appear to be their own reporting. In almost all cases, stations failed to balance the clients’ messages with independently-gathered footage or basic journalistic research. More than one-third of the time, stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety.
See the article and view the videos on your own and realize that television is the last place to look for actual news. (Especially remember that when the push to invade Iran comes.)
